Hurt Before {Yanagi Songfic}
by Lockheart
Summary: What can I say? Yanagi reflects, mostly on her past. And... uh... yeah, this is during the whole 'gift' issue before the UBS starts...


Hello again, minna!  
  
I've decided to temporarily let Mi-chan and Kurei-sama off the hook and do a Yanagi songfic...  
  
Kurei: *grumpily* I should think so, after what you did to me in 'I am the Darkness'.  
  
Mi-chan: Heh... You must've been in a good mood lately. You haven't written something about me for a long time... *realizes his mistake of reminding the all-time evil fanfic author* Doh!  
  
Lockheart: *cackling evilly* Don't worry, Mi-chan... You're one of the main characters in Catharsis [which I may or may not upload here], and it's a multi-part story, too...  
  
Anyway. Yanagi belongs to Nobuyuki Anzai and whatnot. So do Recca, Fuuko, Mi-chan, Domon, and Mori Kouran. Kaoru wasn't in the Hokage yet, at the time of this fic. 'Hurt Before' belongs to the Corrs and their writer and producer and WHATEVER. Actually, I was also using this fic as a comparison between the first songfic I did [Unforgivable Sinner] and this one...  
  
~Hurt Before~  
  
--music starts-  
  
/She's a girl in a world,  
  
she's moving as fast as she goes  
  
Loves her mom and her dad,  
  
the only secure that she knows/  
  
"Mori-sama has decided that *she* will be your gift."  
  
One finger, jabbed in my direction.  
  
If they're looking at me, I don't realise. All of a sudden, my brain is shutting off, refusing to let me take in information, refusing to let me think, see, feel. I don't understand. This wasn't supposed to happen.   
  
...Me...  
  
...Why?...  
  
Memories. Tidal waves of memories. Crashing over me, numbing nerves, thrashing around me, soaking me, seeping into my mind, my heart, my soul. Claustrophobic, suffocating me with pictures, times past and forgotten, scenes etched in the core of my being, never to grant me the pardon of euphoric amnesia.  
  
/But at night, she's alone,  
  
she's dreaming of somebody new  
  
Her someone for to hold,  
  
she's praying the dream will come true.../  
  
I was always alone, even as a child. I was always the dreamer of the family. I could see them. I could see the world around me, but it wasn't real, somehow. I found the greatest pleasure within myself, and constantly I hid inside, in my shell. They didn't understand me; they didn't care.  
  
I still remember the room. We lived in a one-bedroom apartment, and it always smelled of cheap beer. A few tattered mattresses in the corner, old plastic bags and Styrofoam food containers littering the floor, the windows cloaked with dust... that was it. I slept on the mattress, 'Tou-san slept in the bedroom on his old bed and his stained pillows.  
  
As a five-year-old, every morning I would drag an old stool to the window and stand on it, peering over the once-white wall, watching the kindergarten students clutch on to their parents' hands as they made their way to the kindergarten, not far away.  
  
I never got to experience that. Somehow, I'd never got to go to kindergarten.  
  
So I buried myself in hopes, dreams. I'd heard of Snow White and Cinderella, and I dreamed of a prince coming to bring me away, carry me away from everything, happily ever after.  
  
Foolish, but then, I was five.  
  
/Show me the way -   
  
show me, show me how  
  
Help me be brave -  
  
for love/  
  
The dreams kept me going, even when I turned six; whenever things got too bad, whenever 'Tousan came home, grunting, having spent his day's salary on a six-pack of beer, I would retreat back into those dreams and believe that someday, everything was going to be all right, that my prince would come, and that one day, I would be happy.  
  
I never had a mother; I didn't know why, and something told me that I didn't want to know. Then one day, 'Tousan didn't come back alone.  
  
I still remember it now, ten years later. She was wearing some kind of funny get-up; pretty disgusting, to me, but he didn't seem to think so. It was kind of - some kind of dress, I think, if you could call it that; very tight, very short, and she had a lot of gold jewellery. They both ignored me and went into the bedroom. I stared forlornly after them.  
  
Soon after, strange noises seemed to be emitting from there - moans. Shuddering, I curled up in a corner and did my best to enter that little world of mine suspended outside reality.  
  
/Show me the way  
  
Show me, tell me how  
  
What do you say?/  
  
And by that time, pictures began to form in my mind. My prince began to take shape. Dark, spiky hair, cinnamon-coloured eyes, a smile...  
  
By then, my existence began to revolve around this.  
  
/There's a pain in her heart  
  
she's trying so hard to unwind  
  
Makes her cry in the night,  
  
when visions so real make her blind/  
  
'Tou-san came back with that woman every day. Then, one day, a week later, he came home with her, scooped me up, and told me that they were taking me somewhere.  
  
Excited at the attention, I didn't question him.  
  
He took me to an orphanage.  
  
I never forgot that day. He never came back for me.  
  
It hurt. It hurt, so much. I spent my days looking blankly at the walls. The people in charge of the orphanage were a matronly couple, and they cared for me very well. But I was trapped. Trapped in my mind, trapped in my doubts of self-worth, just... just trapped.  
  
I never let myself cry in front others. No matter what happened, I refused to cry. But at night, I'd break down and cry, silently, softly, so that nobody knew.  
  
Nobody knew.  
  
/Wants to break trough the fear  
  
Erasing the scars from within  
  
Start a new kind of being -   
  
She's down and she's praying again/  
  
I was adopted after some time - I wasn't sure after how long. Three years or so, I think. After my father left me there I stopped caring. Each day was just time - it didn't mean anything else. I didn't know what I was doing; why; I wasn't sure of anything. I just plodded through each day.  
  
I was adopted by a young couple. And I decided to forget. To start over. To live again. That day was February 24, and I took that day as my birthday.  
  
Later that day one of the people running the orphanage told me that February 24 was the day, three years ago, that I'd first stepped into the place.  
  
And from that day on, I forgot about everything - I forgot about the prince I'd created - the one with the spiky black hair, the soulful eyes, the one that called me Hime - or at least, I tried to.  
  
The mind does wonders, but forgetting something that's imprinted in you, that was your entire existence, is not one of them.  
  
Still, I tried.  
  
/You see-  
  
she's turning the key, unlocking the door  
  
Embracing the roller coaster world.  
  
Stepping outside, body and soul  
  
Taking whatever future holds./  
  
And I tried to live again.  
  
I tried my best, and my best seemed to work. I changed my personality totally, and became a friendly, outgoing girl. My classmates loved me. My teachers kept praising me. They fell for it, hook, line and sinker.  
  
But I couldn't convince the one person I wanted so hard to convince.  
  
Myself.  
  
/Turning the key, unlocking the door  
  
Embracing the roller-coaster world.  
  
Take it in stride, you're just twenty-five  
  
And you know we've all been hurt before./  
  
And the years passed. Everybody else seemed to be living such simple lives; nobody saw past the bright, happy shell.  
  
Looking back I wondered how I managed to do it. I had been nine years old. Nine years old.   
Nine, going on twenty. But as I grew, I got better at it. By the time I was eleven, I had established an identity for myself.  
  
I had a large circle of acquaintances, people who 'hung out' with me, people who chatted with me. I was the sympathiser and the empathiser; the one people automatically hung out with when they had problems. I was the unofficially designated emotional healer of the class, and I fulfilled my obligation patiently and well.  
  
/Show me the way- show me, show me how  
  
Help me be brave- for love  
  
Show me the way- show me, tell me how  
  
What do you say?/  
  
I gained a reputation as being sweet and kind, and I revelled in it as much as I loathed it. For the first time in my life, I seemed to matter - but I mattered to these people just because I could help them. They didn't really care about me; they just cared about that identity I had painstakingly built up. And inside, my soul was wilting; dying.  
  
I was thirteen.  
  
I'd built a world for myself; built a personality, built a life; constructed everything out of nothing, brick by brick, and now my hands were scratched and bleeding, my body was scarred, and I was trapped in the very world I had built.  
  
/You see she's-  
  
Turning the key, unlocking the door,  
  
Embracing the roller-coaster world.  
  
Stepping outside with body and soul,  
  
Taking whatever future holds./  
  
It was around this time that I started to help out in the kindergarten. It was almost ironic, really. I'd never got to go to kindergarten myself, and here I was, volunteering, chatting to little kids.  
  
And... I was happy.  
  
I was in a tunnel, so long, so dark. I'd walked and walked and walked, and I was tired; gods, so tired. Wearily I kept going, and then, for the first time, I saw a spark of light.  
  
So I kept on helping out there. But the spark was just that - a spark. It got slightly bigger, slightly brighter, but I never saw the light.  
  
/Turning the key, unlocking the door  
  
Embracing the roller-coaster world.  
  
Take it in stride, you're just twenty-five  
  
And you know we've all been hurt before./  
  
  
...But...  
  
It seemed different.  
  
These children...  
  
They'd helped me see that spark.  
  
Now they seemed to be leading me on, tugging on my hand, pulling me down the tunnel, gathering around me, helping me hammer at the walls I'd built.  
  
It was disturbing, almost, but in it I'd started to see a kind of twisted sense. And I started to believe again.  
  
I started to believe that...  
  
...I could walk out of the tunnel.  
  
/You see she's-  
  
Turning the key, unlocking the door,  
  
Embracing the roller-coaster world.  
  
Stepping outside with body and soul,  
  
Taking whatever future holds./  
  
Just once, I started to imagine what it might be like to have real friends. It was a wonderful thought. Too good to be true.  
  
Literally too good to be true.  
  
I had to do something about it. So I did. I shut myself up, refusing to let me believe that it could happen.  
  
And then, one day, I saw him.  
  
It was the day of my sixteenth birthday - February 24, the same day ten years ago that he'd given me up.  
  
I was walking along the street after kindergarten that day.  
  
I hadn't noticed him, he hadn't noticed me. And at the same moment, we stopped, and our gazes met.  
  
He looked old, now, and haggard. His clothes were stained and wrinkled, his pants ripped, his shoes worn.  
  
He looked pathetic. Terrible.  
  
He reminded me of somebody, ten years ago.  
  
He reminded me of myself.  
  
"Yanagi-chan," he'd whispered hoarsely. I'd avoided his gaze, but try as I might I couldn't brush past him and leave.  
  
He caught my arm, and stared pleadingly into my eyes.  
  
"I'm sorry, Yanagi-chan. Believe me, I really am."  
  
I'd looked back at him, and everything came washing back. My dreams, my hopes, my disappointment, my tears.  
  
"...Are you?" I replied evenly, holding back a sob.  
  
He'd breathed sharply, and I knew that I couldn't stay there any longer. Thrusting my free hand into my pocket I took out my pocket money and stuffed it into his hand.  
  
Shocked, he'd let go of me, and I took the chance to leave.  
  
I never met him again.  
  
/Turning the key, unlocking the door  
  
Embracing the roller-coaster world.  
  
Take it in stride, you're just twenty-five  
  
And you know we've all been hurt before./  
  
  
A week later, I was still reeling from the shock.  
  
And that was the day I met Recca-kun.  
  
And after sixteen years, light came pouring through the tunnel.  
  
Snatches and memories of my fantasies came flooding back to me. The same hair that I'd imagined. The same warm brown eyes. The same cheeky look, the same noble tendencies, the same habit of calling me Hime.  
  
And after that, I'd met more people - Fuuko-chan, Ishijima-kun, Mikagami-sempai.   
  
For the first time I had my prince. My ninja.  
  
For the first time I had friends.  
  
For the first time, I wasn't alone.  
  
For the first time, I lived.  
  
But even then, they had to help me. Save me. I was helpless.  
  
...And now... it's my turn to help them.  
  
/Turning the key, unlocking the door,  
  
Embracing the roller-coaster world.  
  
Stepping outside with body and soul,  
  
Taking whatever future holds./  
  
"...I'm willing to be the gift."  
  
You're all staring at me.   
  
"...Hime!" You seem shocked, Recca-kun.  
  
No, my ninja. I need to do this. I *need* to do this for you. I trust you. And now, I must trust myself as well.  
  
You saved me, Recca-kun. In more ways than one.  
  
You saved me from desperation.  
  
You saved me from insanity.  
  
You didn't just save my life; you saved my heart, my soul.  
  
  
/Turning the key, unlocking the door  
  
Embracing the roller-coaster world.  
  
Take it in stride, you're just twenty-five  
  
And you know we've all been hurt before.  
  
...We've all been hurt before/  
  
  
I know that, no matter what, you'll never let me down. Any of you.  
  
I'm not alone. I know that. I have so much now; and now I seem to have progressed past existence - I'm living now; walking with the sunlight bathing me, striding with a purpose, not just idly stepping along.  
  
You are my ninja, Recca-kun, and I am your princess, your lord.  
  
And I beg of you, my prince - allow me this glory. Allow me this moment; allow me this life. Allow me to feel like I'm doing something; allow me to do this; allow me to run along the road with the wind whipping my hair, never to step back in that godforsaken tunnel again.  
  
I am proud to be your Hime.  
  
Understand my purpose... This is for you, and for me.  
  
  
/So you're not alone/  
  
  
Let me do this, Recca-kun. For Fuuko-chan, for Ishijima-kun, for Mikagami-sempai.  
  
For myself.  
  
And for you.  
  
  
/So you're not alone.../  
  
  
...Allow me this chance, my ninja.  
  
Let me soar.  
  
Your Hime has spoken.  
  
-owari-  
  
See what too much Survivor can do to your brain?  
  
Anywayz, ignoring the exceedingly lame last line, whaddya think? Review, onegai? 


End file.
